Electronic devices are increasingly becoming connected to each other over networks, such as the Internet. The use of hand-held electronic devices with network capability has also become quite widespread. Cell phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), portable email devices, and hand-held game devices are but a few of many examples of hand-held electronic devices that can generate, store and transfer data wirelessly over a network. Although connectivity of these devices has increased, the process of transferring files from one device to another tends to remain somewhat awkward.
For example, for devices connected over a local area network (LAN), a user can look up a destination for a file using a browser or menu on one of the networked devices. The file can then be transferred using a “drag” and “drop” operation with a “mouse” or a series of keyboard commands, or commands selected from a menu. The file-transfer instruction sequence does not depend on how physically close the source and destination devices are with respect to each other. This can make a transfer of a file, say, from a portable email device to a nearby laptop computer, needlessly complicated.
It would be desirable, therefore, to make file transfer between nearby devices less complicated and more intuitive.
It is within this context that embodiments of the present invention arise.